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I'm a soldier by trade; a fighter. We're hard men, mercenaries. We deal in pain, torment and death. Some handle it better than others. A good many find solace in their cups or in pleasurable company. Aye, those are fine remedies for that what ails the heart. Some others block out all other urges but that for battle, seeking out a fight wherever they might be one, or wherever one can be started. Then there are the few who simply enjoy it. The ones who need no drink nor willing wench to sooth their souls. These men, the quiet, the nondescript, have but one need after taking a life: the need to do it again. It's them that give me the shivers.

I've already told ye of lethal chefs, but what of librarians? Aye, little, bespectacled scribes more oft stained with ink than blood. It's the Servants of Illumination of which I speak. Hiding amongst the true scribes in the great library of Al Talil, The Incandescent, as they're called, use the fabulous dexterity attributed to scribes for much more sinister purposes. It's well known that they were involved (if not directly responsible for) the razing of the Kenzhia Observatory and Harmonite Hall. Who knows what other acts of subterfuge they've engaged in.

A tale less told is that, despite popular theory The Servants of Illumination are most likely responsible for the theft of the Nightshade archives during the Twenty-Fifth Feast. This fact alone convinces me that, although they use the library at Al Talil as a base and training ground, the Incandescent clearly are unbound by that association. The Incandescent seem to have their own, mysterious agenda, with comfirmed affilaion with the Malefar. Lord Brannon Blackstone has also been named in more than one account of Incandescent activity.

Dangerous folk, indeed, are these seemingly meek men of letters. It's quite possible that they engineered the disatrous 49th Feast from the very beginning, with Lord Blackstone performing a suicide mission to be the final catalyst of it all. I know not. All I know is that I fear a man with ink on his fingers more than I do one with blood on his blade. The pen, perhaps, truly is mightier than the sword.